by Martin Jenkins ; illustrated by Grahame Baker-Smith ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2019
A family story over 4 billion years in the making in a suitably ambitious format.
Grand in scope, art, and trim size, a panoramic survey of this planet’s residents from earliest prokaryotes to our species’ first direct ancestors.
Opening with an enormous double gatefold headed “Here Comes the Sun,” Jenkins’ account begins at the beginning (when, as he puts it, “something happened”) and ends with the split 5 or 6 million years ago that led to chimpanzees down one line and humans down the other. In between, it presents the history of living things within a framework of extinction events, ice ages, and other climate-related shifts. Into this admirably coherent view of current thinking about our planet’s deep past he also crams technical nomenclature (“Among the new kinds of animals on land were different synapsid and sauropsid amniotes”), which, along with all the equally polysyllabic identifiers accompanying the illustrations, should delight young sesquipedalians. Baker-Smith’s paintings, a gore-free mix of full-spread color scenes and sepia or graphite galleries of individual figures, show off his versatility—some exhibiting close attention to fine detail, others being nearly abstract, and all (particularly an armored marine Dunkleosteus on the attack and a Tyrannosaurus that is all teeth, feathery mane, and wild eyes) demonstrating a real flair for drama. Design trumps legibility for a few passages that are printed in smaller type on dark or variegated backdrops.
A family story over 4 billion years in the making in a suitably ambitious format. (glossary, timelines) (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0420-9
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Candlewick Studio
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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by George Sullivan ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001
In this companion to Portraits of War: Civil War Photographers and Their Work (1998), Sullivan presents an album of the prominent ships and men who fought on both sides, matched to an engrossing account of the war's progress: at sea, on the Mississippi, and along the South's well-defended coastline. In his view, the issue never was in doubt, for though the Confederacy fought back with innovative ironclads, sleek blockade runners, well-armed commerce raiders, and sturdy fortifications, from the earliest stages the North was able to seal off, and then take, one major southern port after another. The photos, many of which were made from fragile glass plates whose survival seems near-miraculous, are drawn from private as well as public collections, and some have never been published before. There aren't any action shots, since mid-19th-century photography required very long exposure times, but the author compensates with contemporary prints, plus crisp battle accounts, lucid strategic overviews, and descriptions of the technological developments that, by war's end, gave this country a world-class navy. He also profiles the careers of Matthew Brady and several less well-known photographers, adding another level of interest to a multi-stranded survey. (source notes, index) (Nonfiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7613-1553-5
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Twenty-First Century/Millbrook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
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by Kathleen Krull & illustrated by Boris Kulikov ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2005
Debuting a new series, Krull presents a compelling argument that the great painter of the Renaissance was one of the West’s first real modern scientists. Into the stew of superstition that passed for scientific thought in medieval Europe was born Leonardo, illegitimate and therefore only very sketchily schooled, he grew up largely on his own, rambling around his family’s property and observing nature. The portrait that emerges is of a magpie mind: He studied and thought and wrote about very nearly everything. The breezy text draws heavily from Leonardo’s own writings, discussing his groundbreaking forays into anatomy, water management and flight, always propelled by a commitment to direct scientific observation. That Krull manages, in some 100-plus text pages, to present Leonardo’s scientific accomplishments while at the same time conveying a sense of the man himself—his probable homosexuality is presented frankly, as are his pacifism and the overriding opportunism that had him designing weapons of war for the Duke of Milan—is no mean feat and bodes well for the succeeding volumes in the series. (appendix, bibliography, Web sites, index) (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: July 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-670-05920-X
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2005
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